Originally posted by Yohan
even if Harper gets majority govt and implement his radical social policies, it's a political suicide. sure. the cons might get their 4 years of majority, but the election after all, the opposition will hammer the cons for all its worth from the time first of those bills get passed. and the libs be in power for next 10 years or something
stuff like abortion and gay rights are more or less part of Canada now. to go against that is going to alienate a lot of centre Canadians
whatever Harper's real stance may be, I think he's too much of a pragmatic realist and not much of an idealist to not see what kind of damage he can do to the cons if he ever adopts far right cons views
Keep in mind of course, that no politician thinks long term. They're only concerned with the current election cycle. And it's not like Harper is going to declare abortion illegal. They'll go after it like they do in the States with "Cooling off period" laws, mandatory viewing of ultrasounds, parental concent, etc. They will try to erode what freedoms women do have. As for same sex marriage, again, they aren't going to ban it, they'll merely challenge previous court decisions and ensure that it gets stuck in the courts for 2-3 years.
Never underestimate the power of the conservative base when it begins to question whether it's getting anything for the millions of dollars that it donates.
Yohan
quote:
Originally posted by nacarter
Keep in mind of course, that no politician thinks long term. They're only concerned with the current election cycle. And it's not like Harper is going to declare abortion illegal. They'll go after it like they do in the States with "Cooling off period" laws, mandatory viewing of ultrasounds, parental concent, etc. They will try to erode what freedoms women do have. As for same sex marriage, again, they aren't going to ban it, they'll merely challenge previous court decisions and ensure that it gets stuck in the courts for 2-3 years.
Never underestimate the power of the conservative base when it begins to question whether it's getting anything for the millions of dollars that it donates.
even at the guarantee of losing the next election?
forget the law part.
the electorate is not going to stand for far right social policies in Canada. it's a guarantee that the cons will lose the next election if anti abortion and gay rights bill get passed
Nick Cenik
For what it's worth, I caught some of Iggy's Q&A session this morning on CBC News. I have to say he impressed me and came across as a passionate, committed leader.
ChemEnhanced
quote:
Originally posted by Yohan
even at the guarantee of losing the next election?
forget the law part.
the electorate is not going to stand for far right social policies in Canada. it's a guarantee that the cons will lose the next election if anti abortion and gay rights bill get passed
The majority of funding for the cons comes from the far right....at some point they have to give the far right something or else risk loosing the majority of their funding.
Moral Hazard
quote:
Originally posted by ChemEnhanced
The majority of funding for the cons comes from the far right....at some point they have to give the far right something or else risk loosing the majority of their funding.
That's the critical flaw in the CPC's ambitions right there... you can't win without $$$ and you can't get money from your base without catering to them but you can't win a majority by catering to their base. This is why the Cons have had to move more and more to the centre. Eventually, they will either loose their base and there will be another far right fringe party spring up (Reform v2.0) or they will move back toward the right and loose Ontario.
ChemEnhanced
Tory candidate lobbied for firm selling F-35 jets
Published On Mon Mar 28 2011
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Undated photo of Raymond Sturgeon in meeting with Stephen Harper. From Facebook:
Undated photo of Raymond Sturgeon in meeting with Stephen Harper. From Facebook:
Facebook.com
Allan Woods Ottawa Bureau
OTTAWA—A Conservative candidate in Ontario lobbied for a firm that is selling Canada a fleet of controversial fighter jets whose disputed cost helped spark the election, the Toronto Star has learned.
Raymond Sturgeon, who is trying to unseat the New Democrats in the northern Ontario riding of Algoma-Manitoulin-Kapuskasing, had a long and distinguished career in the Canadian Forces both as a soldier and civilian, before taking up his most recent position.
He is currently employed by CFN Consultants, an Ottawa-based firm that is considered to be the home of the country’s premiere defence lobbyists. Up until last December, Sturgeon was listed as a paid representatives of more than half a dozen companies seeking to sell equipment, weapons and aircraft to the Department of National Defence.
Those companies include Lockheed Martin, BAE Systems, Colt Canada Corp., Israel Aircraft Industries Ltd., General Dynamics and Rheinmetall Canada, according to federal government records.
Lockheed Martin has a contract with the U.S. Department of Defense to produce the F-35 Lightning stealth fighter jet, which the Conservative government hopes to sign a contract for in 2014 and begin receiving two years later.
The dispute is over the cost. Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government and the Department of National Defence say the total cost to purchase a fleet of 65 jets will be about $16 billion. But the Liberals say delays and cost overruns mean those the government’s cost projections are no longer valid.
Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff says he will scrap plans to buy the F-35 fleet if his party forms the government.
The Liberals got a boost in the final weeks of the last parliamentary session from Parliamentary Budget Officer Kevin Page, whose cost analysis of the fighter jet program came up with a price tag of $29.3 billion.
“Perhaps coincidentally, (the government’s) figure reflects statements made by Lockheed Martin in 2001,” Page wrote in his report.
Sturgeon’s registration as a lobbyist for Lockheed Martin expired on Dec. 15, records show. On the same day, he also de-registered as the paid representative of Colt Canada, a Kitchener-based weapons producer. Sturgeon was involved in “procurement of small arms” for the government and “resolving issues” around the Automatic Firearm Country Control List.
As of October 2010, that list included 33 countries to which Canada can buy and sell automatic weapons. Most are NATO countries, but the list also includes Botswana and Saudi Arabia. Albania and Croatia were the most recent additions to that list.
There is no record of Sturgeon having met with any government officials, but there are shiny new pictures on his Facebook page of the candidate sharing an intimate moment with Harper in the Prime Minister’s Office.
Sturgeon, who won the Tory nomination in January, did not respond to a Star interview request on Friday. In a press release upon being nominated, he took aim at the NDP MP for the riding, Carol Hughes and her vote against a Tory motion to abolish the federal long-gun registry.
“(Her vote) is a clear demonstration that she is more concerned with the views of big city voters and her Toronto boss, Jack Layton. I want to change that.”
The Conservatives finished a distant third place in the riding in the 2008 election.
The Liberal-led opposition defeated the Conservatives last week in a non-confidence motion, sparking the election. MPs ruled that the Tories were in contempt of Parliament for hiding the costs of the fighter jet program, its corporate tax cut regime and its criminal justice legislation.
It was Conservative Leader Stephen Harper’s party that initially cracked down on the cozy relationship between federal politicians and lobbyists. When first elected, the Tories legislated a five-year ban on lobbying by former politicians and political staffers.
ChemEnhanced
Walkom: Yes, contempt of Parliament does matter
Published On Fri Mar 25 2011
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By Thomas Walkom National Affairs Columnist
The Conservatives say their government’s contemptuous approach to Parliament doesn’t matter. They are wrong.
They are wrong on any number of levels. The most basic is the most obvious. For all of its imperfections (and they are many), the only thing close to a democratic national body in Canada is the House of Commons.
To be contemptuous of its members is to disdain those who elected them. Canadians get precious few chances to determine what their leaders do. When voters elected a minority government in 2008, they were signalling that they didn’t trust Stephen Harper’s Conservatives (or indeed any other party) to run the nation’s business single-handed.
Instead, they wanted the opposition parties to check government — to act as watchdogs, moderate its ideological excesses and keep it in line.
But throughout the life of this now-dead Parliament, Prime Minister Stephen Harper refused to accept the voters’ verdict. His decision to operate as if he controlled a majority of Commons seats may have been good short-term politics. But it contradicted both the spirit and reality of the very limited mandate voters had given him.
Had he stopped there, Harper’s approach might have been excused. The fact that his government survived as long as it did can be blamed in large part on the opposition’s failure to call his bluff earlier
What cannot be excused is the attitude behind this approach. True, Harper is not the Great Satan that some paint him to be. He is thoughtful and intelligent. Those who know him far better than I credit him with a sense of humour.
But there is a bitterness to this prime minister that has infected his entire caucus. All politicians are partisan by definition. Harper’s partisanship is over the top. He not only disagrees with Canadians who are liberals and left-leaners. He seems to despise them.
All of this was manifest before he took over the merged Conservative Party. In those days, he disparaged what he called the moral failings of liberals, calling them nihilists bent on the destruction of western values.
In power, his rhetoric was often more restrained. But as former nuclear regulator Linda Keen found, those he believed tainted by Liberalism could expect no mercy. Keen was axed in 2007 because she insisted that Canadian nuclear plants have back-up power systems — systems we now know that Japan’s ill-fated Fukushima reactors famously lacked.
But her real sin was to have been appointed to by a previous Liberal government. That, Harper suggested, made her inherently untrustworthy.
Opposition MPs and others who had the temerity to disagree with the government were given equally short shrift. Canadians who questioned Ottawa’s handling of Afghan prisoners were treated as traitors. Richard Colvin, the veteran diplomat who testified to this mistreatment, was savagely and personally attacked.
At one point, when it looked like his government might be defeated, Harper simply shut down the Commons.
The contempt motion on which the government fell Friday related specifically to the government’s refusal to tell elected MPs the full cost of its programs. That refusal in itself demonstrates the Conservatives’ profound disdain toward the only democratic national institution we have.
Yet it is also part of a pattern. This government is willing to sacrifice Canadian soldiers to bring democracy to Afghanistan and Libya. But it cavalierly dismisses democracy at home.
Cynics hold that Canadians don’t care about such abstract matters, that as long as our bellies are full we will put up with anything. We shall see. The cynics have been surprised before.
Thomas Walkom's column appears Wednesday and Saturday.
Canada is looking at setting up bases around the world to better position the military to participate in international missions, Defence Minister Peter MacKay confirmed Thursday.
The Canadian Forces does "prudent planning," MacKay told reporters, taking into account the ability to participate in international missions.
There are no plans to set up permanent bases around the world, but the planning happens to ensure Canada has options in case the military needs to deploy from another country, a government source said.
"As we look out into the future what we obviously try to do is anticipate where and when we will be needed, but it's difficult with any certainty to make those plans, without talking to other countries, without doing internal examinations," Mackay said.
"The focus of the planning, let's be clear, is our capability for expeditionary participation in international missions.... We are big players in NATO. We're a country that has become a go-to nation in response to situations like what we're seeing in Libya, what we saw in Haiti...
"We are constantly working within that paradigm of countries, to see where we can bring that niche capability to bear. It's part of planning and preparation, in conjunction with our equipment needs."
A report in Montreal newspaper Le Devoir said the Canadian Forces is negotiating to set up bases under a program known as the Operational Support Hubs Network. They've reportedly already completed negotiations with Germany and Jamaica, and are in talks with Kuwait, Senegal, Kenya or Tanzania, Singapore and South Korea.
Canada did have a base in the United Arab Emirates, known as Camp Mirage, to ease access to Afghanistan, but was kicked out after a dispute over commercial landing rights in Canada.
The Canadian Forces had to scramble to set up an alternative base in Cyprus. They also use a base in Germany for staging.
MacKay also said Thursday he believes that Canada will receive the first of its new F-35 fighter jets as scheduled in 2016, despite reports that manufacturer Lockheed Martin is saying it can't meet this country's delivery date. "That's the date we're banking on, that's the information we've been given by the company," he said.
There's also controversy over the cost of the stealth fighters, which the government pegs at $9 billion. But others say the cost could exceed $30 billion.
This is beyond ing stupid. Canada is into empire building now?:rolleyes: Why are we copying the American's footsteps here? How is the government planning to reduce our deficit when they are planning to waste more of our money towards like this?
ChemEnhanced
quote:
Jack Layton's statement
July 25, 2011
On February 5th, 2010 I shared with Canadians that I, like 25,000 other Canadian men every year, had been diagnosed with prostate cancer.
I have received overwhelming support from my loving family, my friends, my caucus and party, and thousands of everyday Canadians.
Their stories and support have touched me. And I have drawn strength and inspiration from them.
In the closing days of the most recent session of the House of Commons, I suffered from some stiffness and pain.
After the House rose, I undertook a series of tests at Princess Margaret Hospital in Toronto.
My battle against prostate cancer is going very well. My PSA levels remain virtually undetectable.
However, these tests, whose results I received last week, also indicate that I have a new, non-prostate cancer that will require further treatment.
So, on the advice of my doctors, I am going to focus on treatment and recovery.
I will therefore be taking a temporary leave of absence as Leader of the New Democratic Party of Canada. I'm going to fight this cancer now, so I can be back to fight for families when Parliament resumes.
To that end, I have requested that the President of our party, Brian Topp, consult our Parliamentary caucus and then convene a meeting of our party's federal council to appoint an interim leader.
The interim leader will serve until I resume my duties.
I intend to do so when Parliament meets on September 19th.
I am also making a recommendation on who the interim leader should be.
I suggest that Hull-Aylmer MP Nycole Turmel be named interim leader during this period.
Ms. Turmel enjoys unanimous support as the national chair of our Parliamentary caucus. She is an experienced national leader in both official languages. And she will do an excellent job as our national interim leader.
Let me conclude by saying this.
If I have tried to bring anything to federal politics, it is the idea that hope and optimism should be at their heart.
We CAN look after each other better than we do today. We CAN have a fiscally responsible government. We CAN have a strong economy; greater equality; a clean environment.
We CAN be a force for peace in the world.
I am as hopeful and optimistic about all of this as I was the day I began my political work, many years ago.
I am hopeful and optimistic about the personal battle that lies before me in the weeks to come.
And I am very hopeful and optimistic that our party will continue to move forward.
We WILL replace the Conservative government, a few short years from now.
And we WILL work with Canadians to build the country of our hopes
Of our dreams
Of our optimism
Of our determination
Of our values...
Of our love.
Thank you.
Jack Layton
ChemEnhanced
quote:
Trouble in Toryland: their Dirty Tricks catalogue iPolitics Insight
Posted on Mon, Feb 27, 2012, 5:04 am by Lawrence Martin
Lawrence Martin is the author of 10 books, including six national bestsellers. His most recent, Harperland, was nominated for the Shaughnessy Cohen award. His other works include two volumes on Jean Chrétien, two on Canada-U.S. relations and three books on hockey.
The Conservatives have been caught up in many shady activities since coming to power. The revelation that they may have been behind a robocall operation to suppress voting for opposition parties would rank, if proven, among the more serious offences.
Stephen Harper has denied involvement in the scam in which operatives acted under the guise of Elections Canada officials. Coincidentally, another controversy, the in-and-out affair, involved Elections Canada. Some of Harper’s most senior officials took part in that operation.
In giving or not giving the benefit of the doubt on matters like these, the question of the track record figures prominently. To the misfortune of Team Harper, its record on duplicitous activities is hardly one to inspire confidence that its hand are clean.
There follows a list – is Harperland becoming Nixonland? — of dirty tricks, black ops and hardball tactics from the Conservatives’ years in power.
1. Cooking the Books
The duplicity began in the election that brought the Conservatives to power – the 2006 campaign in which they were promising a new era of transparency and accountability. Via some peculiar accounting practices, the Tories exceeded spending limits in the campaign, providing themselves with an advertising advantage in key ridings. They were later caught, had their offices raided by police and ultimately pled guilty last year to reduced charges of violating financing provisions of the Elections Act.
2. The Hidden Slush Fund
More than $40-million slated for border-infrastructure improvements instead went into enhancement projects in Tony Clement’s riding in preparation for the G-8 summit. To conceal the intent of the spending from legislators, John Baird used the border fund as a “delivery mechanism” for the money.
3. Falsifying Documents
The document-altering scam involving Bev Oda’s office and the aid group Kairos is only one of several instances in which the Tories have been caught document-tampering. They went so far as to alter a report by Auditor General Sheila Fraser to make it look like she was crediting them with prudent financial management when, in fact, it was the Liberals to whom she was referring.
4. Shutting Down Detainees’ Probes
The Conservatives employed a number of authoritarian tactics to avoid culpability on the Afghan detainees’ file. They included an attack on the reputation of diplomat Richard Colvin, the shutting down of Parliament and the disabling of Peter Tinsley’s Military Police Complaints Commission. The Tories denied Tinsley’s commission documents for reasons of national security – even though commission members had national security clearance.
5. The Cotler Misinformation Campaign
In an act described by the Speaker of the Commons, himself a Tory, as reprehensible, Conservatives systematically spread rumours in Irwin Cotler’s Montreal riding that he was stepping down.
6. The Suppression of Damaging Reports
A report of the Commissioner of Firearms that showed the gun registry in a good light was kept hidden by Public Safety Minister Peter Van Loan beyond its statutory release deadline. As a consequence, the report escaped the eyes of opposition members before a vote on the registry was taken. It is one of many instances in which the government has suppressed research that runs counter to its ideology.
7. Attempt to Frame the Opposition Leader.
Late in the 2011 election camapign, a senior Conservative operative leaked bogus photos to Sun Media in an attempt to frame Michael Ignatieff as an Iraqi war planner.
8. Communications Lockdown.
The government went to unprecedented lengths to vet, censor and withhold information. After denying legislators information on costs of programs, Harper became the first prime minister in history to be found in contempt of Parliament. The public service has muzzled like never before. Last week, several groups wrote Harper urging him to stop gagging the science community on the question of climate change and other issues. The Tories denied an opposition member accreditation to attend the Durban summit on climate change then lambasted the member for not being there. Journalists have faced myriad restrictions. At one point in the in-and-out affair, PMO officials fled down a hotel fire-escape stairwell, Keystone-Kops style, to avoid the media. On another, the governing party had the police clear a Charlottetown hotel lobby of scribes wishing to cover a Tory caucus meeting.
9. Intimidation and Bullying of Adversaries
The list of smear campaigns against opponents is long. Some that come to mind are Harper’s trying to link Liberal Navdeep Bains to terrorism; Vic Toews’ labelling of distinguished jurist Louise Arbour a “disgrace to Canada” for her views on the Middle East; seeking reprisals against University of Ottawa academic Michael Behiels for being critical of the government; and the dismissal of Nuclear Safety Commission boss Linda Keen who the PM decried as having a Liberal background.
10. The “Citizenship” Dog and Pony Show
As well as being muzzled, civil servants have been put to use for the government’s political benefit. In one such case, the immigration department ordered bureaucrats to act as stand-ins at a fake citizenship reaffirmation ceremony broadcast by Sun TV.
11. Writing the Book on Disrupting Committees
The Tories quietly issued their committee chairpersons a 200-page handbook on how to obstruct the opposition. The handbook recommended barring witnesses who might have embarrassing information. It went so far as to instruct chairpersons to shut down the committees if the going got really tough. The Tories have also issued an order that frees cabinet staffers from ever having to testify before committees. They are resorting more frequently to in-camera committee sessions, away from the public and media eye.
12. Leaking Veterans’ Medical Files
Colonel Pat Stogran, who was dropped as Veterans’ ombudsman after making waves, says he became the target of anonymous defamatory emails and other dirty tricks after criticizing the government. Other veterans, Sean Bruyea and Dennis Manuge, say their medical files have been leaked, going all the way back to 2002, in an attempt to embarrass them.
13. Unfixing The Fixed-Date Election Law
The prime minister brought in a fixed date election law which, he said, would remove the governing party’s timing advantage in dropping the writ. He promptly turned around and, earning Jack Layton’s lasting disdain, ignored his own law and issued a surprise election call in 2008.
14. Declaring Brian Mulroney Persona Non Grata
In the wake of the Karlheinz Schreiber cash hand-out controversy, Harper’s team, in its zest to disassociate itself, went so far as to put out the false rumour that Mulroney, who won two majorities for the party, was no longer a card-carrying member.
15. Unreleasing Released Documents
The Conservatives have resorted to the use of shady tactics to de-access the Access to Information system. In one notable instance cabinet staffer Sebastien Togneri ordered officials to unrelease documents that were on their way to the media. Freedom of information specialist Stanley Tromp has catalogued some 46 examples of the government’s shielding and stonewalling.
16. Ejecting Citizens From Rallies
Operatives hauled voters out of Harper rallies in last year’s campaign for the simple reason that they had marginal ties to other parties. The PM was compelled to apologize.
17. Hit Squad On Journalists
Operating under phony email IDs, Conservative staffers have attacked journalists in thousands of online posts in an attempt to discredit them and their work.
18. Dirty Work on Dion
The Conservatives have set records for the use of personal attack ads. In the 2008 campaign they ran an on-line ad which depicted a bird defecating on Stephane Dion’s head. Protests compelled them to withdraw it.
19. Tory Logos on Taxpayer Cheques
The economic recovery program was paid for by taxpayer dollars but the Tories tried to make political gains by putting their party logo – until they were called on it – on billboard-sized cheques. Surveys by journalists showed the money was distributed disproportionately to Conservative ridings and partisans.
20. The Rob Anders Nomination Crackdown
The prime minister has been accused of turning his own party into an echo chamber. When someone tried to exercise her democratic right to challenge Harper loyalist Rob Anders for the nomination in his Calgary riding, Harper’s men descended like a black ops commando unit, seized control of the office, seized control of the riding executive and crushed the bid.
21. The Rights and Democracy Takeover
Groups like Rights and Democracy supposedly operate at arm’s length from the government. But the Harperites, in what journalists described as boardroom terror, removed or suspended board members and stacked the board with pro-Israeli hardliners. As part of the ethical anarchy, a break-in occurred at headquarters.
22. Vote Suppression Tactics
Along with the accusation of pre-recorded robocalls sending voters astray in last election, reports of several other Tory vote suppression tactics have surfaced. They include a systematic live-caller operation in which Liberal supporters were peppered with bogus information.
The list does not include such controversies asthe Cadman affair in which the Conservatives allegedly tried to bribe independent MP Chuck Cadman for his vote; the whitewashing by Integrity Commissioner Christiane Ouimet of 227 whistleblower complaints against the government; the allegation by eyewitness Elizabeth May that Harper cheated in the 2008 election’s televised debates by bringing in notes; and many others.
daves
I wish I could say it is refreshing to see that they have done and are doing the very things some of us said they would be doing from back in 2005/2006... that they have indeed proven themselves to be the wolves in sheep clothing that some of us warned about.
But most people right now cannot see past their bankbooks and tax returns, and it appears that so long as they have (the appearance of) assurances that their financial situations will be boosted under conservative government, they are willing to overlook the moral/ethical blemishes.
So far robogate is not really hurting the conservatives in the polls - but that may be fair as not much of anything is proven yet?
